Saturday, January 3, 2015

Fathers and Sons

I'm glad that despite my neglect of this blog some people are still reading and commenting. It's interesting that even when life gets in the way of my writing I'm inevitably reminded that yes, I'm still circumcised.

I've made efforts to restore my foreskin with varying levels of dedication and success. I definitely have more sensation than I used to before I started down this road but recent changes in my restoration practices have led my progress to taper off. This is, to say the least, frustrating. I have weeks where I'm very consistent and motivated and I read about others who have completed their restoration and I feel confident I'm going to get there. But other times I stop and look down and dwell on the absurdity of it all. Why did someone think this was a good idea to do this to me? Why do I have this bullshit to deal with? Why do I have to wear a suspender over my shoulder and a TLC tugger on my penis at night if I want to experience the level of sensitivity during sex I am now accustomed to? Why did I have to lose some of that sensitivity when I stopped restoring during the day due to a new job without a private office? In general, "what the fuck?" is what I ask myself during those moments.

If I had made the decision of my own accord to remand myself to this circumscribed (get it?) level of sensitivity I could live with it more easily. If I had some kind of congenital defect I could live with it more easily. I could even live with it if I had lost my foreskin in a bizarre car accident. But I didn't. Some doctor hacked it off and sent it to Bath and Body Works without even giving it a second thought. That's what messes with me. I have to go through all of this because of my parents' decision and that guy.

Of course, this is part of the reason why I receive many comments from people who say they are happy the way they are. Indeed, some of them are so "happy" they shout from the rooftops about how great circumcision is and how they plan to circumcise every male child they are ever blessed with. As much as continuing the cycle of violence disgusts me I can understand where these guys are coming from. It was so much easier when I didn't think there was anything wrong with me, when I thought it wasn't a "big deal." Once you take these people down the road of really, truly thinking about what was done to them and why, they tend to exit the conversation or get super hostile. They just don't want to go there. They know on a primal, subconscious level how bad it's going to be if they go there.

But we as men have a duty to protect not just ourselves, but our children. That was when my delusions ended: when I had a son. For the first time I had to really truly think about why my penis looks the way it does and whether I wanted to have part of my son's penis cut off as well. Needless to say my wife and I decided that was NOT going to happen. Why would I cause pain and trauma to this tiny being that only just entered the world? Why would I remove part of his body that had nothing wrong with it?

As fathers our job is to protect our sons. If we remain unhealed from our own traumas we risk revisiting them on the ones we love. So if you think you're happy with the way you are. That's great, I'm glad. I'm not interested in trying to force anyone to walk the path I've chosen. But if you want to be a good father and an ethical human being than you have to realize that when someone is holding a scalpel over your infant son's penis and he is screaming and crying while he is strapped to that goddamned circumstraint it's not about protecting you. It's about protecting him.

Thanks for reading and commenting, Ashley, and for the work you do as an intactivist. Someday circumcision will be illegal and everyone will wonder why medicine that was supposed to be "evidence-based" signed off on it for so long.